The second edition of Voter Vitals – a tracking poll conducted nationwide and in 2020 battleground states by Locust Street Group for the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future – finds “that health care continues to grow in importance as the defining issue of the 2020 presidential election.  However, as voters learn more about new government-run health care proposals, support for them is declining with a majority of voters preferring to build on and improve what we have today rather than start over with Medicare for All or the public option.”

“Americans are clear that they are not willing to pay any more in taxes or give up their current health care coverage in favor of new government-controlled health insurance systems.  Democratic, swing, and Republican voters want policies that would lower costs and fix what we have today more than anything else,” said Phillip Morris, Partner of Locust Street Group.

The Findings:

The latest Voter Vitals tracking shows that more voters support FIXING what we have today (60% support, +3% since August 2019) than the public option (41% support, -3% since August 2019), and Medicare for All (38% support, -2% since August 2019). What’s more, it finds that:

And with 67% of voters reporting they would rather BUILD ON our current health care system than replace it with something new, and 65% of voters being UNWILLING to pay ANY more in taxes for universal coverage – it remains clear that an unaffordable, one-size-fits-all systems – be it Medicare for All, the public option, or Medicare buy-in – is the wrong answer for American families.

Other recent national polling reflects the findings of Voter Vitals:

• A recent poll released by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) finds “support for a public option is slipping,” POLITICO reports.  The poll also finds that Medicare for All “support wanes when voters hear trade-offs,” Becker’s Hospital Review adds.

• Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) CEO Drew Altman wrote in Axios that support for Medicare for All is “headed in the wrong direction” – meaning down – while “polling shows that support drops much further, and opposition rises, when people hear some of the most common arguments against Medicare for All.”

• A national poll from Quinnipiac University, finds that “Medicare for All has grown increasingly unpopular among all American voters,” with a majority saying it’s a “bad idea.”  Medicare for Allis “a real problem for … candidates.  Not just because of the cost, but because few swing voters want to dump private health insurance,” Axios adds.

• Another recent poll from Kaiser and the Cook Political Report finds that nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of swing voters in the states of Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin rate Medicare for All as a “bad idea.” 

• POLITICO has noted that polls show “growing opposition to ‘Medicare for All,’” while national poll released by Kaiser in September “probes Democrats’ views about the general approaches to expanding health coverage and lowering costs” and finds that “[m]ost Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (55%) say they prefer a candidate who would build on the Affordable Care Act to achieve those goals.  Fewer (40%) prefer a candidate who would replace the ACA with a Medicare-for-all plan.”